Chapter 26

Adira was first down at the base of the enormous pit. With the small lights they each had, there was no way to really judge its size; they could only estimate based on the winding stone steps they had come down. About a hundred feet away, there was the faint shine of the dying glow stick. Its lemon yellow was incongruous on the black stones of the cavern floor.

Matt took a single step before a muffled boom, like the beating of a titan’s drum, thundered down through the huge cave. He, Adira and Abrams were thrown flat to the ground, as car-sized boulders hit the stone floor around them, followed by showers of dust and debris.

The tumultuous echoes pounded away into the deeper tunnels, and the trio stayed down, hugging the stone floor.

Abrams was up first, then Matt on one knee first, before getting warily to his feet. He dusted himself down.

“We’re still here.” He looked confused. “The detonation was a long way away, but still, we shouldn’t be.”

“And if we’re still here…” Adira stayed down “…then so is our problem.”

Abrams coughed as the rock dust created a fog of fine silica particles that floated in the beam of their lights. He looked down at Adira, still prone on the stones, one side of her face pressed to the floor.

“Must have only been a partial detonation. You okay?”

She shushed him, and held up a palm to them. Both men froze, waiting.

She sprung to her feet and wiped her face. “The floor; it’s hot, very hot.” She wiped her cheek again. “And there’s movement below us – grinding and sliding, like something heavy being dragged across rocks.”

“Must be the deeper effects of the nuke.” Abrams shook his head. “Can’t be Cthulhu, we’re miles away from Mammoth Park.”

“We don’t know that,” Matt said. “We have no idea what the true physical form of this thing really is. Sure, we’re a long way from where we think it will emerge, but for all we know the thing stretches below the earth like some sort of giant worm and spreads for miles – hundreds of miles.”

Matt shut his eyes. “And the leviathan that is Cthulhu, the oldest of the Old Ones, will rise. The Earth will crush, and the seas drain as the flesh of mortal beasts will be but paste for its bowels.”

“What the hell was that?” Abrams asked reaching out to steady Matt, who was about to topple over. “Was that in the book?”

“Yes and no. I mean it was in the book all the time, I just didn’t know it because I couldn’t read it,” Matt said, steadying himself.

“The symbols…now you can read the symbols,” Adira said.

Matt nodded. “I think so.”

“Now you get it?” Abrams asked incredulously.

“Must have been the Shoggoth’s touch.” He looked across at them. “I can feel it now – the celestial convergence – it’s like waves of energy, pulling at everything on the planet, drawing these things from below the earth. It’s all focused on this place, right here, right now.” Matt pointed. “We need to go lower and find the gates…and then find the Book. The answers must be hidden in its pages – I must see them again.”